Tender Turkey Meatballs
Servings Prep Time
24meatballs 10minutes
Cook Time
30minutes
Servings Prep Time
24meatballs 10minutes
Cook Time
30minutes
Ingredients
Instructions
Serving Immediately Instructions
  1. In a large bowl, combine milk and bread crumbs to form them into a paste. This is the panade I mentioned above and will help increase the tenderness of your meatballs. Let the panade rest for a minute while you prepare the marinara.
  2. Pour the marinara sauce into a large skillet (or any pan that has a wide bottom) and cover it with a lid. Heat the marinara on medium/low until it reaches a simmer. While marinara is warming up, add all of the remaining ingredients on top of the panade and mix them together with your hands until well combined, but try to avoid over mixing, as that will lend to a tough texture.
  3. Once all the ingredients are mixed together, and the marinara is at a rapid simmer, wash your hands, turn the heat on the stove down to medium low and start forming the meatballs into golf ball sized balls. Place each meatball directly into the simmering marinara as they’re formed, working from the inside of the pan, out. Make sure you place them close together, you’ll need all the space you can get. The sauce should come up about half way on the meatballs.
  4. Once all the meatballs are in, cover and let it simmer for 15 minutes on medium low. Don’t stir or move anything during this 15 minutes, you’ll risk breaking the meatballs.
  5. After 15 minutes, use a spoon or tongs to gently turn the meatballs over in the marinara sauce, recover, and let simmer for another 10 minutes. To make sure your meatballs are cooked all the way through, stick a meat thermometer into the largest meatball on the outermost edge of the pan. It should reach 165 degrees F.
  6. The meatballs will soak up a lot of the moisture from the marinara, so if you’re serving these with sauce (for spaghetti) I would recommend making more sauce in a separate sauce pan. If you don’t want to deal with washing two saucy pans, the meatballs can also be baked for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. I just think they have more flavor when they’ve simmered in marinara. If you do bake them, make sure you line the pan with tin foil or a silicon baking sheet.
Freezer Instructions:
  1. Form the meatballs as instructed above, however, instead of putting them directly into marinara sauce, place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment or wax paper. Cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap and place in freezer overnight.
  2. Label a gallon bag with “Turkey Meatballs” and an expiration date for six months out and write these instructions below: 1. empty meatballs into crockpot with 1 jar marinara sauce and cook on low for 8 hours, high for 4 hours 2. OR bake at 350 for 30 minutes (turning at 15 min) 3. OR cook in marinara on stove top (covered), twenty minute on both sides
  3. Once the meatballs are frozen, dump them into the gallon bag and store them in your freezer. These meatballs will keep in the freezer for about 6 months before freezer burn sets in.
Recipe Notes

Serving Size: 1 meatball

Servings: 24 meatballs

Pricing:

Total cost of dish: $8.14

Cost per meatball: $0.34

Nutrition:

Calories: 83

Protein: 8.3 g

Carbs: 3.1 g

Fat: 4.2 g

Sodium: 368.6 mg

Sugar: 1.2 g

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